Rome -
Italy's coastguard said nine corpses were recovered in operations in which 6,055 people were rescued off Libya Monday, three years to the day after 366 people died in the sinking that first alerted the world to the Mediterranean migrant crisis.

Carletonville -
In a dark, smoke-filled mine shaft, a group of South African rescue trainees heave and gasp after crawling through a narrow steel pipe -- but commands shouted by an instructor urge them onwards."Number four, what is your oxygen reading?" he yells.

Kallon -
Two Syrian mothers who crossed from Turkey to Greece on a refugee boat said Thursday that they were separated from their children during a Turkish coastguard operation to stem the flow of migrants.

Varsovia -
The EU border agency Frontex said one of its maritime patrols rescued around 900 migrants on Thursday near the Greek island of Lesbos as weather conditions have made the sea crossing more dangerous.

Lille -
Four Iranian migrants making a rare attempt to reach Britain by boat from France on Saturday were rescued in the nick of time after their vessel took on water and was close to capsizing, officials said.

Rome -
An Italian ship on Saturday morning reached the Sicilian port of Catania bringing 246 migrants to safety as well as the body of another after two rescue operations off the coast of chaos-wracked Libya, the coastguard said.

Moscow -
Russian and Syrian special forces have rescued the second pilot of a Russian warplane shot down by Turkey and he is now at a Russian air base in Syria, the defence minister said Wednesday."The operation ended successfully.

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Egyptian rescue teams were looking Sunday for more victims of a Russian passenger plane crash in Sinai, widening the search after finding bodies scattered across eight square kilometres a day after the incident.

Rome -
Twenty-one rescue operations Saturday picked up more than 4,500 people off the Libyan coast, according to the Italian coastguard, as calm seas sparked a flurry of attempts at the perilous Mediterranean boat crossing.